Tangible
by Perhelediel
Summary: Eight years of waiting can dull even the sharpest memory. A letter: what Rosette would say to Chrono, if only he'd hurry up. Mangaverse, oneshot, Rosette-centric. -CxR-


_Author's Note:_ Well. I determined _Chrono Crusade_ was my favorite manga more than two years ago, but I had yet to write something I liked enough to submit. So...today I managed to pump something out on a whim, and I'm actually kind of glad that its inspiration was off the one line that sealed the deal in this series for me. You'll see what line I'm talking about at the end.

This is just an introspective oneshot from Rosette's perspective, perhaps in the form of a letter. Whether she actually wrote it out on paper or not, I'm not really sure. Written in one draft and spottily edited, plus I haven't written in a while, so I hope it's not awful. Enjoy. :)

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It's my 24th birthday today.

Well, I never thought I'd make it this far. Not after I was convinced it was the end, at sixteen. What was it I told Azmaria? That I wouldn't make it to thirty? I'm doing pretty damn good then.

I wonder what you're up to. I mean, you didn't like to do much on your own, did you? Did you even _have_ hobbies of your own before? Well. Whatever it is, it's gotta be better than following me around, huh? You never complained, but it had to have been boring...

What am I even saying? I'm sitting here just hoping you're alive in the first place.

It's strange to even be writing these words. You knew how much I hated to wait, so...I know if you could, you'd find your way back here as fast as you possibly could. At least, if you're the Chrono I know. And even if I don't deserve someone like you, someone who put up with me for the four craziest years of my life and probably deserves a little time off.

It's weird. It's the weirdest feeling in the world, Chrono. Every day, it feels like things get more normal around here. More coverups for the wave that hit New York City, more far-fetched explanations for the rings in the sky, more contrived causes of death for the pilots whose bodies were consumed by legion... Even Joshua and Azmaria don't have their powers anymore. Worse than that, it's like not having them is making it harder and harder for them to remember what it was like, or to even believe they ever had them to begin with.

That's what makes it so hard for me, too. Chrono, eight years is a long time, you know?

At first, it was easy...one day ago, we defeated Pandemonium. Two days ago. A week ago. A month ago. Back around Christmas. Last year. "A long time ago." Every time a little more time passes, our recollection gets fuzzier, the impact hits less. The farther we get from it, the less real it seems.

It was easy to remind myself at first, too. All it took was a five minute walk to the woods to Mary's grave, to let sensory memory take over. And when I was there, I found the old clothes you were wearing when you first got there...not the old rags you ended up in when Joshua and I found you, but the ones you brought with you on your long journey from the Grand Canyon trying to escape that...bastard. They were rolled up in the corner. I wonder...how you ended up all the way up here? How far did you make it, with Mary, before he caught up with you? And how far did you come to stay with her after the Order buried her?

...all things I could've asked, but never did. There were so many things I wanted to know; there still are. _Damn it all._

Anyway, I wear part of it now. If I don't have it around my shoulders, I feel naked, even if it doesn't match a single thing I'm wearing like Elizabeth loves to tell me. It's like how I felt at first, not getting up every morning and putting the pocketwatch around my neck...it felt wrong, raw, like something was carved out and missing. Why'd you have to take that thing with you, Chrono? So you can beat yourself up more about "what you did"? Even though blame is just about the farthest thing from my mind when I think about it? You thought it was a painful reminder every time you looked at it, but for me, it was a cold, heavy, reassuring sign I wasn't alone in the world, sitting on my chest. And it's one less thing I can touch and hold to reassure myself you weren't just a very long, very strange dream.

You were so...strange, Chrono, although I never even took a second glance half the time. You had _violet hair_, for God's sake, and you freaked more than one person out with your eyes. People didn't seem to notice the pointed ears as much, but the eyes always got them. And when you were in your real form, you couldn't look more inhuman if you tried, but for some reason it never crossed my mind to not believe what I was seeing. And the more time passes, the harder it becomes to believe you were as real as the rest of us, a demon walking amongst a bunch of humdrum normalcy.

I just.....thank God I have that photograph of us.

Azmaria found a really pretty frame for it, and set up this little table in my room with my gun and some other pictures we found around the orphanage and anything they managed to salvage from the New York branch. It was dark that night, and the picture's a little grainy, but I can't tell you how much good it does for us. Sometimes I see Azmaria come into my room in the morning, tiptoeing as if I'm still asleep, and just stand and stare at it for what seems like forever. She seems to be convinced we'll all be back together someday. I don't know how, but she seems to think Satella's okay. I hope she's right...

I've memorized every inch of that thing, I think. Your wild hair, that awkward smile the photographer managed to capture when Satella grabbed you from behind...my arms around you and Azmaria, both solid and real.

Photographs don't lie.

When...when you had to leave me behind back then, I think I kind of already knew. I saw Pandemonium's memories; I knew something that made me sick to my stomach that I'm sure didn't take you long to figure out when you got to Aion. But...it didn't make it any easier.

And then you had to go and say goodbye...like _that_.

I didn't think a heart could be broken and mended both at once until you were kissing me. I didn't know I could want something so badly and not know it until just then, either. And yet it felt like the most natural thing in the world...something so familiar, something so very..._us_ that we should've done tens of times before then, had either of us had the clear conscience or...maybe even just the guts. Why did we wait so damn long, Chrono...?

Even with the photograph, and the shawl, the rings in the sky, the recollections of everyone around me, the things that are so tangible and yet lose their ability to convince me with every passing day...that kiss is probably the one thing keeping me going. I feel like there's so little time left to...to love you, once you get yourself back here where you belong.

_March 12th, 1932._

Chrono...don't keep me waiting, okay?

_Wasn't it you who said, the one place Chrono can come back to was decided four years ago? That place is...wherever you are. --act 56, 'A Future With You'_

_**Fin.  
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